Steve Vekich Email & Phone Number

Arden Hills, Minnesota, Us

Channel, brand and product marketing leadership for animal nutrition portfolio.

Arden Hills, Minnesota, Us

Responsible for retail and eCommerce channel marketing strategies and initiatives across the Purina Animal Nutrition business enterprise. Product owner on B2C and B2B eCommerce platforms. Strategic leadership over SEO, SEM and digital product content management. Experience in Salesforce commerce, Word Press and Woocommerce platforms. Deep Agile development experience. Channel marketing partner to key account team responsible for multi unit retail channel selling LOL Feed enterprise products. National account calls, insights to innovation partnerships and cross functional team player who works toward win-win solutions.

Arden Hills, Minnesota, Us

Eden Prairie, Mn, Us

Leader of brand marketing and marketing communication teams for $450 million business segment (National School Studio). Created and led strategic planning, customer research and national partnerships to grow the business. Developed a stage gate new product process that brings more innovation to market quickly. Key Success:• Led business strategy & cross functional team that developed and brought to market a proprietary photo software and camera technology system achieving $150 million in sales in 4 years. Consumer participation grew +15% greater than the legacy offering. • Cross functional team leader who created and managed the Mylifetouch.com e-commerce website presence and its SEO, content strategy, merchandising, promotions and user experience. Web accounted for 25% of all orders and +25% in order average over the traditional business model. • Developed the strategy and guided execution of a B2B2C customer datamart and campaign management system via SaaS implementation for our multi tiered business model. Achieved 32,000 customer and 1.5 million enrolled permissioned accounts after 4 months.Additional Responsibilities:> Marketing Leadership & People Management> Product Development> Consumer and Customer Insights Generation> New Products & Innovatoin> Advertising, Digital Marketing & Consumer Promotion

Minneapolis, Minnesota, Us

Developed and executed sales & marketing initiatives at 5 key strategic growth customers for the Big G Cereal division: Wal*Mart, Target, Club Stores (Sam’s Club, Costco, BJ’s), Drug Store (Walgreens, CVS, etc) and Dollar Stores chains. Lead a marketing team of 4 and was point person to account teams for sales presentations, business strategy, and consumer selling stories across all Big G cereal brands. Increased unit volume by 23% (over two million cases),which accounted for total volume growth in the Big G Division during fiscal 2003 and 2004.

Us

Direct responsibility for marketing, and sales on the $30 million Bread Mix Concentrate & Ready-to-Eat Bread business unit in the Foodservice channel. • Led the business team in strategic planning, meeting profit targets, sales, marketing and delivery of the overall business objectives. Managed direct reports in marketing (two managers), sales (five regional managers + 5 customer service reps). • Increased total business profits from $9 million to $10 million in two years through innovation. • Introduced Pillsbury Fresh Bread as the first-ever, ready-to-eat fresh bakery product under the Pillsbury brand. Grew the business to over $20 million dollars in retail sales in a three-year period, with profit of $2.5 million. . • Developed and negotiated license and supply agreements with key customers and business partners in the baking industry.

Us

• Marketing Manager, Pillsbury Fresh Bread October 1997 – December 1998• Product Sales Manager, Pillsbury Frozen Brands October 1996 – September 1997• Marketing Manager, Totino’s Pizza Brands October 1994 - September 1996• Associate Marketing Manager, Green Giant Brands March 1992 - September 1994• Marketing Research Analyst, Green Giant Brands February 1991 – February 1992• Financial Analyst, Special Commodities Division June 1987 - January 1991• Internal Auditor, Corporate Accounting September 1984 – May 1987

Mba, Marketing

Bachelor'S Degree, Accounting